


How the Heart Stutters

by OnyourRadar



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Angel of Death Eliott, Angst, Deathfic, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sick!Lucas, lucas pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 04:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19041229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyourRadar/pseuds/OnyourRadar
Summary: ...before it stops.It is your God who demands the souls of the lost be reaped. The angels chosen for this are lost souls themselves, but they have decided. Love would be worth the work  that they do. It’s a cruel fate that they’ve resigned themselves too, never knowing when the job will finally end. But when it does, the angels of death will willingly give up their post for the one who is meant to love them for the rest of eternity...--or--Eliott works hard and finds his eternal love





	How the Heart Stutters

_It is your God who demands the souls of the lost be reaped. The angels chosen for this are lost souls themselves, but they have decided. Love would be worth the work that they do. It’s a cruel fate that they’ve resigned themselves too, never knowing when the job will finally end. But when it does, the angels of death will willingly give up their post for the one who is meant to love them for the rest of eternity..._

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

That man with the messy hair. Lucas remembers seeing him so many times before. He’s 24 and there are blips, odd dreams, and distant memories that left him familiar with the cool touch of this stranger. Lucas doesn’t know him like a friend but knows him more intimately. Like a lover. One he has never spoken to with words but is inexplicably linked and twined together with, through the events of his life.

Lucas was 7 when he first saw him. And at that time, Lucas had his first brush with death. It stayed with him. That first time remains in the back of his memories ready to resurface each time he caught sight of biting, frosty blue eyes. 

His aunt laid on the hospital bed, her chest making the slightest movements in synchronization with the beeping of the machines. Her body is a frail heap on top of white sheets and her usual bright blue eyes --that held such great delights-- were dull with age and sickness. Lucas can recall clearly, the distress held taut in both his parents bodies as they came to pay their respects. In the dim-lit hospital room his mother and father stood on one side. 

His mother held his aunt’s hands and his father stood by, comforting his wife. Lucas stood near the door. He only carried his little legs over, closer to the bed, peering up at his aunt who showed no recognition of him when the doctor and nurse came in as quietly as possible so as not to disturb them. 

What strikes Lucas as strange and caught his attention was how everyone continued on with their actions, oblivious to the man sitting in the green visitors chair arms extended towards Lucas’ aunt, and yet not touching her. 

He smiled at Lucas, winked even. And Lucas had to look back and forth between his parents and the stranger. His blue eyes bounced towards the doctor and his nurse before traveling back to the invisible company. Noone could see what he was seeing. Lucas felt something. But he didn’t know what it was, but he was drawn to it. Drawn to the unsettling feeling that the stranger exuded in that hospital room. 

Lucas didn’t think much of it. But he didn’t look away from the man. He was captivated by his gaze that never breaks from his young eyes that were filled with wonder. Without looking away the man reached back out and curled his long fingers, tendrils of darkness, around his aunts fragile wrist. 

There was no other sound so loud in Lucas’ ears than the beeping of machines getting steadily slower until there was a flat ring only to suddenly stop. The quiet is overbearing and Lucas has never erased that sound from his thoughts, a constant noise that accompanies him throughout life; an unwanted companion. He hears his mother sobbing, hears the quiet words whispered between his father and the doctor. Everyone too busy to pay attention as Lucas approaches the man. 

He doesn’t know why he does it. His seven year old mind concludes that he wants to be sure the man is real, that everything in the room that is happening is real. Or he wants it all to be a dream. 

The man holds out his long arms, arms that can easily reach out and wrap around Lucas’s frail body. His palm is faced up and he sits there waiting. Lucas knows he is waiting for him to make the next move. 

He reached with his little pale fingers to wrap around the longer ones in front of him. 

Lucas felt the pain that was a perpetual friend since birth magnify into something unbearable and when he looked up at the man who embodies darkness, Lucas gasped and saw through slitted eyes, a sad smile. 

Lucas couldn’t tell you what happened after. He doesn’t quite remember. 

His mother tells him, he went down. Hard. He dropped into oblivion, his little life leaving his body to enter the cosmos. The doctor acted as soon his body collapses, as soon as the deafening sound of his head making impact with the linoleum floor registered. He had a stethoscope out and had paged the staff with a calm patient voice that there was a “Code Blue”. 

The commotion that followed was anything but calm. Security ushered his parents out. More nurses, another doctor, some staff members rushed into the room. His mother tells him, she could see how his body jolted into forced movement from the doorway. She told him countless times how she screamed for her baby boy. 

“I was so scared. Your little body couldn’t handle all that power…we didn’t think you would make it.”

She said they stuck needles in his little arms, that the medicine that coursed through his veins carried him back down from whatever sky he floated too. That day, when Lucas wrapped his fingers around those of his strange lover at the tender age of 7, Lucas’ heart stuttered...until it stopped. And in that darkness that appeared when his eyes fluttered closed, Lucas dreamt of gathering stars with his aunt, collecting dust in the pools of liquid galaxy and when he opened his eyes, he imagined there were golden stars, a halo, in his hair. 

His mother begged him to come back to her and he smiled because he was there and she was silly. 

By 13 Lucas spent most of his days playing in the living room of his small family apartment, his fingers his makeshift toys, his imagination laying the foundation for the worlds around him. 

“Your son, has he ever experienced dizziness or shortness of breath?”

“Pain in his chest? Mrs. Lallemant this is more serious than we think. His heart stopped. We would like to keep an eye on him.” 

Ventricular Fibrillation. His heart beat irregularly. He lived his life monitored. His mother kept a close eye on him at all times. Sometimes there were just the eyes of his mother, other times Lucas smiled kindly at those of his stranger. 

He would be sitting on the counter, a vision of black against the light back splash of his kitchen. Lucas would lay there, on the floor and he would watch in kind as the man with messy hair and frosty blue eyes picked up a coffee mug, sniff at and gag in disdain before dipping the tip of a pink tongue in to taste the bitterness. Lucas’ laugh would usually make the man’s face screwed up in happiness, smile soft on a pale face. 

They’d make faces at each other, crossing their eyes, pulling and stretching their own skins to see how they could morph under each other’s gaze. 

“What are you laughing at Lucas?” 

And Lucas wouldn’t know so he would simply shrug and look away. Look at the empty kitchen counter. Those times he would wonder if his mind made up lies, if it wasn’t just his heart that was damaged. Lucas wondered if there was something he was running from and his mind was giving him something to run too. 

Sometimes Lucas would be accompanied on his walk to and from school. He would appear, looking different and yet the same. Once Lucas saw him with black hair, a sight that would cause even the coldest hearts to warm and fall in love. He walked backwards, avoiding poles and potholes, watching Lucas and Lucas would laugh out loud at his silly little movements, as if getting used to the human body. 

When Lucas’ eyes lingered on his black hair, the man who stood so much taller than him reached up and pulled his locks down in front of his face, blue eyes crossing. Lucas can see the laughter in his eyes and when Lucas made the mistake of laughing too hard at his antics, leaning forward and almost touching the other, Lucas never thought he would see a smile vanish so quickly. 

The body that would’ve caught his leaning was gone and Lucas found himself on his knees, hands out and braced against the sidewalk. Lucas felt embarrassment heat his body and when he looked up, he thought he saw anger flash on the beautiful face, but he couldn’t see past the blinding sun that illuminated him from behind. In moments his black-haired stranger was gone.

He did see him again. Most times in passing. And only ever from farther away than he wanted him to be. Once, in the distance Lucas saw that he changed again. He stood across the street, leaning on a fence and a single hand ran over the buzzcut he donned. It was strange to see him without the hair Lucas was so used to, but at no point would Lucas ever confuse this man with anyone else. 

It wasn’t until he was 15 that Lucas actually came close to him again, close enough to touch. 

His blue eyes fixed on the passing lights outside as the car he sat in drove him home. His mother was driving, Yann sat next to him, in the middle, and his dark skinned friend was animatedly talking with the new girl, Chloe, about the movie they just saw. 

It happened quickly. Right before Lucas’ world started to drown he saw his mysterious man, an image that was the same as all those years ago in the hospital, appear in the front passenger seat as if he was sitting there the entire time. 

There was panic, regret, a million decisions running through those eyes and Lucas had already started the process of forgiveness before the pain began. He watched as his stranger reaches behind with both hands and caressed Chloe ever so gently that Lucas can hear her life leave her. 

And then the pain started. Noise from every which way, Lucas remembered the feeling of falling. He was tossed around, his body jerked and he was slammed against the car door. He thought he heard a scream. Yann. Lucas kept his eyes opened as long as he could and he saw the car that slammed into them. He saw his stranger dissipate into a cloud of black smoke, only to reappear next to the driver who was bleeding terrifically from a gaping wound on her forehead.

It wasn’t her that held the frosty gaze. Rather, Lucas never broke eye contact with him. There was irrational anger painted on his face, Lucas thought he looked demonic among the mess. Lucas could see how the hand reached out and gripped tightly at the drivers neck and those eyes never left his while he stole away her life so violently. He was there for no more than a minute before sirens woke Lucas from his daze. 

He looks to see his mother is lost to the world groaning in the front seat, eyes closed. Yann’s arm was twisted and the boy unconscious. Lucas used what strength he had to open the door next to him to tumble out and empty his stomach at the sight of Chloe’s twisted neck. 

Lucas’ lungs felt heavy and he had been able to count his heartbeat that day. The way it slowed. He matched his breathing with it and by the time the paramedics came by and he came too, he was sitting in an ambulance, riding with his mother a shock blanket wrapped tightly around him.  
Yann was in another tailing them. Chloe was pronounced dead at the scene. 

“He has a medical bracelet. We need to monitor him get the--”

There in the back of the ambulance, Lucas’ mind goes off again. He drowns this time, his lungs burn. Air escaped him and Lucas remembers the blue that surrounds him. When he looked up, he could see the barest of light breaking through from above. He thought sometimes, and this still remains true, that he saw life colorblind. But underneath the sludge, the thickness of water was a comfort that wrapped around Lucas, completely. He saw the rainbow that night, coloring him blind and he counted the bubbles that escaped him to fill his lungs with fire. He wondered, was Yann nearby, swimming away from his memories, He thought, maybe it was Chloe he saw that floated at the surface, bathing in the sun. 

Lucas can’t place his mother and he feels panic float by in the current of the water. He thought, perhaps, during this time in their lives, his mother was off fishing for the pieces of herself. 

When Lucas came back to waking world, he sits next to his mother, waiting. She was there for days after the accident and he knew the only reason was because she shattered on impact and needed all the time to find herself. 

Yann came to him and Lucas can remember thinking maybe Yann needed to find himself as well. But the boy never took the time and his friend never recovered. He stood, arm in a cast, voice absent for weeks to come. He looked haunted. Lucas wasn’t sure Yann managed to escape his memories. Ever.

By 22 Lucas sat back; a silent support for his friend, his mother, and sometimes himself. He hugged his mother more often, and when he left the house, her arms stayed around him a little longer. He never told her how much he loved her with his words, but his eyes spoke volumes for him. When Yann came to pick him up, he never told her where he went, choosing not worry her. But he followed his friend. He followed him to the parties, to the gatherings, to the places with all the sounds. 

Lucas kept his eyes trained, turned a blind eye when he knew Yann did something stupid, and led him away when things got to much. For the most part, Lucas stood quietly on the wall, choosing to meld and blend instead of joining and sparking the interests of others. 

At times, when the neon lights danced across his sight and lit up his face, Lucas would forget why he was there. He remembers looking out at the parties and on more than one occasion, he’d catch the gaze of Chloe from across the room, only to have her gone in a blink of an eye. She looked so young. 

Perhaps, when he saw her, he recognized the disappointment and sadness in her eyes. It’s how she communicates and he can hear her talking to him, the eerie sound of death speaking. But he knew that was not what made Lucas walk up those stairs by the end of the night, in search of his friend. 

Instead, when he heads to the restroom and Lucas looks in the mirror at himself, he never jumped when he saw his stranger standing behind him. Lucas brought his hand up and waved gently without turning around. His medical bracelet makes a clang that echoes in the emptiness of the bathroom when he hits it against the porcelain sink. 

His quiet love never responded, and instead he tilted his head, eyes slightly dulled from the weight of what appeared to be the world on his shoulders. Lucas took a moment that night to observe how Lucas grew but the man never did. However, that night, he stood almost to size with his stranger. But his shoulders were smaller, stature decrepit. He stood shorter. He was skinnier than the other. Lucas remembered thinking of how he might fit perfectly if he would just reach out with his long arms and wrap them around Lucas. 

Lucas would fall willingly. But when Lucas turned around, prepared to stare his night away, he was greeted with a blank wall. He swallowed thickly at the emptiness he felt. When Lucas left the bathroom that night, his eyes scanned the crowd. He saw Arthur who waved him down but Lucas used his chin to indicate that he’d head up the stairs to look for Yann. 

Lucas was lucky that day he thought. How he had his blonde friend follow him up. Lucas knew if he hadn’t motioned for the other, perhaps, that night, two lives would have been lost. But he doesn’t dwell on that these days. Lucas took the stairs two at a time, a sudden urgency that filled him. 

When he tested the doors, he got it on the third try. He could feel his heart begin to stutter when the wooden door creaked open, slowly. He was greeted first with those blue eyes that haunted his waking hours and blessed him in his dreams. That panic had a reason, and he knew it before he saw it. 

His stranger reached down, hands large and looming over Yann’s face. Second, he saw the way his friend shook, white foam bubbling like champagne out the side of his open mouth. His eyes were closed and Lulcas thought, if he wanted it enough, he could convince himself that Yann was sleeping. That was not what he wanted that night. 

He pushed the door open wide, his eyes the size of saucers and he remembers leaping at the man standing. 

“No!” was out of his mouth before he could think. A harsher sound than he was used to producing. And when Lucas touched him, making such brief contact, he felt complete for a second and he could hear his heartbeat, so soft...stuttering...before it stopped for the second time in so many years. 

He crumpled to the floor, his last image of that strange man, eyes wide, conveying disbelief. He could hear Arthur’s panicked scream for someone to call an ambulance. 

Lucas let himself melt that night and embrace the darkness that surrounds him. He chased something. A light that appeared above his head. He wondered...if he caught it would he wake. 

He smelled all around him, dirt and earth. Fresh trees and leaves, the soft crunch of bristle pine beneath his feet. Lucas recalled looking up and a dust of stars guided him home. He was alone on this walk. They twinkled kindly, chirped in the night sky and whispered _It's not your time._

So when he blinked into existence, it was to a room that was all too familiar and yet so different. 

He could hear the beeping of the machine, his mother a statue by his side, his father who he hadn't spoken to in years stood by the door, relief colored him grey at the sight of Lucas' blue eyes. Or so the light in the room made Lucas believe what he wanted that day. 

"Mama?"

A coma. Six weeks. There is a moment of clarity that strikes him. He doesn’t miss the time he lost. Lucas craves his night sky, and his blinking fireflies that guided him through the canyons and valleys.He dreaded the answer to his next question. 

"Yann?" 

Alive. Breathing. He attempted to take his own life. Had it not been for Arthur, neither one would have made it. Yann felt too guilty so he never visited Lucas while he recovered. Lucas thought that's why he never does. 

At 24 Lucas thinks it's strange how he continues his existence. He has fewer friends and more worries. His condition deteriorates and he has spent the last two years walking on eggshells simply waiting for himself to make the wrong move. He waits for himself to finally break. Lucas watches his mother turn grey at the stress. He wants to let go and stop chasing those waterfalls he became so fond of. 

So he makes his decision and even stranger when he does he is sitting in the living room, alone and not alone at all. Across from him, Lucas smiles at his messy haired lover. The man sat with one elbow resting on the arm rest and his chin neatly placed in the palm of his hand.

After what felt like decades, the man holds his hand out towards Lucas...Lucas accepts.

He metaphorically packs his life away into a tiny box. Lucas finally gives up the good fight. Memories, feelings, family, friends, Lucas finds a compartment for it all. He ties his box with a neat little bow, sends his love to them through space and time. 

Lucas doesn't regret anything though and thinks he has filled his short life to the brim. He retraces his footsteps in the sand and thinks, he has told those he loves that he loves them, he has showered them with kisses and hugs enough to fill their secret treasure chests to last them for the rest of their days. He has achieved greatness in the worlds he paints and has discovered a calmness that is not easily found. He is satisfied. 

When he curls his fingers Lucas welcomes that intense pain one last time, his breathing is haggard and his eyes close on their own accord. He counts the steady drumming in his chest again and again before it moves too fast for his fading mind to keep up with. So fast he feels his chest is about to burst and a symphony is to play a last and final song; to fill the air around him with notes that only he can hear, notes only he can see. 

Lucas feels on a slight bout of fear latch onto the remnants of his mind as he thinks he might wake to the crying of his mother. That when he wakes, her lap might cradle his head gently as her tears wet him from above.

But the odd sensation doesn’t last. When his eyes do open it is done with a snap. He takes in the fact that he is bathed in a warm light that colors him content. The light crystallizes before his eyes and float in the air around him.

A weight he held onto his entire life is absent; missing and he doesn’t go searching for it. He lets it go. He urges himself to touch and feel around, his fingers clench besides him and he lifts his hand to look. He holds in his grip a fistful of clouds, the moisture coats him in calm. Lucas tilts his head slightly and he is greeted with a world stopping smile. Lucas thinks, he found peace in such a vision. 

“Hello.” Lucas looks thoughtfully back at the man who smiles so gently. He takes in the messy chestnut locks, bright blue eyes that have lost the touch of cold, and beautiful dusty rose lips stretched in a smile.

“I know you.” And he does. Lucas has been waiting for so long to hear that voice that makes love oscillate around him. “Eliott.”

The name comes naturally. Like it has been spoken over and over throughout the years. As if, while hiding beneath the covers in makeshift pillow forts, his name is whispered for Lucas to hear again and again in the depths of the night. 

Eliott laughs and the sound... it rings bells all around them. Lucas doesn’t know where they are but he knows that he is exactly where he needs to be. When Eliott brings his hand up to run his knuckles across his cheeks, Lucas lets out a sigh, all his worries dispersing from his body, unwanted. 

“ _Lucas._ ” It’s all Eliott needs to say to channel his desire. “I’ve waited for so long.” 

Lucas nods because he knows. When he reaches for the other and caresses his face, his fingers map out the familiarity of it all and he knew too well.

“I’m here now.” Their voices are soft but Lucas can hear how the echoes all around are so piercing. 

“Will you stay with me?” When Lucas asks this, he knows the answer but he keeps himself grounded with doubt. He doesn’t lose his gravity in the case that this was a mistake. 

When Eliott leans down to touch his forehead to Lucas’, it cements his place besides this man. 

“Always.” Eliott whispers. “We have eternity to spend every minute together.” 

Lucas takes this as a promise and he doesn’t try to contain his smile. He lets his world run away from him and basks in the perfection that he has found.

**Author's Note:**

> hope that this was worth the read. I know when the tag says Deathfic it scares people away. 
> 
> Tell me what you think while you read.
> 
> I tried hard to catch all mistakes, but please point them out....


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